


Cold

by darkmoore



Category: MCU
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 23:56:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9210830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkmoore/pseuds/darkmoore
Summary: Nightmares of his past keep haunting Bucky.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was a spur of the moment kind of thing, written in the middle of the night as an extra for my hurt/comfort BINGO card. Prompts are brainwashing/deprogramming and PTSD. I guess that is just what my sleep deprived brain came up with. Huge thanks go to [BRUMEIER](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier) for the speed beta. Wouldn't know what to do without you, Bru. Thank you so much!

_He’s cold. So very, very cold. The ice settles deep into his bones and freezes his mind, freezes his soul. He’s cold. Cold and empty and hollow. He can’t remember, can’t remember anything but pain and ice. He thinks he used to be someone else, someone not cold and hollow and worthless. Someone else. But he can’t remember now. It’s been too long. Before the pain. Before the cold. Before the chair and the words and the hollowness that came with the wipe._

_Before._

_There are images. So many of them. They rise like ghosts, wispy and pale, haunting him, pleading with him. But he can’t save them. Not then, and not now. A prisoner in his own body, his mind not his own. He’s tried to fight it, tried to resist, tried to make it stop. But he couldn’t; still can’t. The grip of the ice and the chair and the pain is too strong._

_So he watches. Watches as his own hands squeeze the life out of a woman. Watches as his own hands stab and bruise, strangle and maim, torture and kill. Women, children, men. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Their pleas echo in his ears, their cries of agony and fear resonate in his bones._

_And he watches._

_Cold creeps in, slow and persistent; ever present. He can’t remember the last time he has been truly warm. Frozen to the core, that’s what he is. Alone with the images of the things he couldn’t prevent and the shadow of a memory of the man he used to be._

_He used to have a name, probably. A real name, before the cold and the pain._

_Soldier._

_Asset._

_These are not his names. These are merely what the ice and the chair turned him into. Somewhere deep inside, he knows that. He tries to remember, tries so hard but he can’t. It’s too cold and there are hands holding him, gripping him and-_

“No!” He jumps up, ready to defend himself, ready to fight whoever is trying to lay hands on him. Enough. No more. He won’t let himself be used again.

The lights come up gradually but without his doing, and he sees the man beside him in bed, hands raised in a placating manner, blond hair tousled from sleep. 

Steve. 

“Hey, it’s okay Bucky. It’s okay. You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you. You’re okay. You’re home, remember? Everything is all right.” 

Steve called him _Bucky._

Not soldier.

Not Asset.

_Bucky_. 

He scrubs his hands over his damp face, buying some time until he has to face Steve again. Steve, who will look at Bucky with patience and understanding and love in his eyes. 

It’s so much more than he deserves. 

“I’m sorry, Stevie. I just-” He’s not quite sure how to voice all the things that are trapped inside his head, inside his mind. Not even the fact that Tony used his newest invention to get rid of the _words_ , of the programming, the danger of the little red book, can make the cold go away. It’s lodged itself deep inside his bones and it won’t budge. 

He starts to shiver, damp skin uncomfortable in the coolness of the bedroom. 

“No need to apologize. You know these things take time. It’s to be expected that you’re having nightmares after the shrink poked around in your head. PTSD isn’t something that goes away overnight. We all have nightmares. You wanna talk about it?” Steve’s voice is as soft and gentle as Bucky has come to expect. 

It’s comforting. Familiar in a way that very few things are these days. 

“No, not right now,” Bucky answers, and Steve nods his understanding. He wordlessly opens his arms in invitation and Bucky goes willingly. 

As he settles into Steve’s arms, a sense of rightness and calm washes over Bucky. He may not deserve this kind of comfort, but he’s selfish enough to hold onto it. He feels safe in Steve’s embrace and maybe that will be enough to keep the nightmares at bay for the rest of the night. 

Tomorrow they will face a new day, together.


End file.
